COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENTIAL RESEARCH


TREE SPEED
Tree speed is a collaboration between artists Michael Asbill and Andrea Frank. Through experiential process-based explorations, we seek dialogue with the magnificent mesh of life we are embedded in--the animals and plants, the ancestors, the elements. We strive to re-root ourselves in the experience of interdependency, to open our perception toward different time horizons, taking sensory and intuitive information seriously. From there, an embodied way of knowing can inform our collective and transdisciplinary alignment with unfolding events. This is our response to the formidable set of interrelated catastrophes brought forth by the Western way of life we seem unable to turn away from. We have held local and international collaborative think tanks and experiential processes in person and online and are currently Artists in Residence at Mohonk Preserve in New Paltz.

ADAPTING TO TREE SPEED
Twelve grey emergency wool blankets were hand-stitched with lines following the water transportation system, or xylem, of trees, and augmented with sewn-on cuffs, from which partially braided balls of yarn can unwind. We use them with groups of participants in different sites to sit or lie entangled with each other and our environment while wrapped and sheltered in these bark-blankets. Participants slown and quiet down, experiencing themselves here now, enmeshed with all that is.

See here for our collaboration on Heeding Impulse and Time Drawing.
See he e for our exhibition at CANO entitled Adapting To Tree Speed.

EPHEMERAL DRAWINGS WITH WATER
I collaborate with Aurora De Armendi on modalities of ephemeral drawing in dialogue with water. Our experiential reseach explorations included stream enagement with a group of participants at the Peterskill stream in New Paltz, NY as part of the Conference Drawing Ground in October 2023 (see video).